Quantities of trash and good fiber accumulate in and around the feed hoppers in the opening rooms of textile plants. Great clumps of raw cotton and synthetic staple are fed directly from the bale into the feed hoppers and, particularly in the case of cotton, these clumps contain a large amount of trash because the cotton has not been cleaned.
The conventional feed hopper includes a horizontal conveyor on the bottom of the hopper and the upper flight of the conveyor moves forwardly to convey the fiber dumped in the top of the hopper to a feed apron which rises at an angle from the bottom of the conveyor and is provided with spikes to engage the fiber and move it out of the hopper and direct it to a processing machine. The movement of the conveyor and of the feed apron disturbs the fibers and attendant dirt, and quantities of fibers and dirt fall from the conveyor and feed apron, particularly at the transfer point between the conveyor and the feed apron. Heretofore, to applicant's knowledge, accumulations of fibers and trash falling from the conveyor and feed apron have been manually removed from the vicinity of the feed hoppers only by sweeping. Spinnable fibers mingle with the dirt and trash and are wasted in the prior art feed hoppers.